Rehearsal Updates
Nick Shelton has kindly offered to post comments about the show throughout rehearsals.  Here are his first two posts.

Introduction

This adaptation of Jane Eyre by Shared experience and Polly Teale has one key difference from other adaptations. The novel contains passages which illuminate Jane’s inner thoughts and this is something that is difficult to create in drama. What Teale has done is to take the character of Bertha (Rochester’s first wife) and make her a manifestation of these very thoughts. Throughout the novel, Bronte wanted to show that Victorian women were punished for showing their passions and desires. Therefore you could see Bertha as the part of Jane that she wants to keep hidden. One of the key components of this adaptation is the constant physical movement throughout the play, particular in the characters of Jane and Bertha. It is important that all the actors involved feel comfortable in using their physicality. This is why the audition process for the play was different from other productions. Those auditioning needed to demonstrate their ability to create physical movements from ideas and words. They also had to show they could improvise quickly and interact with other actors with ease. Important to the success of the project is the need for the actors to work as an ensemble and this is something that will be developed in the early rehearsals.

Script reading

For the first rehearsal, it was decided that there would be a complete read through of the play. This is an opportunity for the actors to become familiar with the script. At this point, stage directions and character movements are put aside to concentrate purely on the text. The novel is over 500 pages long and covers a significant period of time. Teale’s adaptation has stripped down a lot of the dialogue and detail to concentrate on the key moments. Overall the play has 38 scenes which may seem a lot but quite a few of these are very short. The first impression is that these short scenes will give the piece some pace and energy. The actors took this opportunity to get into their roles and try out various accents. Most of the actors will be playing multiple roles so this was the first chance for them to learn to switch easily between these roles. The read through finished quicker than was expected and went fairly smoothly. The challenge in the first rehearsals is to match this text with all the physical movements required.

Nick Shelton